Hallowed Be Thy Name
by jon3776
Summary: Can a certain souled vampiress find her faith in order to help the new slayer


HALLOWED BE THY NAME

Author: Phoenixgod2000

Summary: Takes place before welcome to the hellmouth.  Faith is an ensouled vampire living on the streets.  Can she drag herself out of the gutter in order to help the new slayer?

Pairing: will be F/X

Rated R for language and Sexuality

Disclaimer: I own nothing please don't sue

Please send feedback.  This is my first posted fic. I originally posted it on FaithandherZeppo and now I'm reposting it here hopefully getting a wider audience.

" Get the Fuck outta here."

The girl on the bed twisted around letting the sheet fall away from her naked breasts.  Her long black hair flowed around her shoulders as she glared at the balding john that sat at the foot of the bed pulling on his pants.  He grabbed his wallet and pulled out a pair of fifties.  " That should cover the ice dunking you call a fuck," he muttered. " I about froze my boys off with you."

" Sorry my core temp don't meet with your approval.  Now leave cause I ain't eaten yet and you don't wanna be around when the munchies strike."  She smoothly rolled off the bed revealing the rest of her very attractive nude form.  A tattoo of a twisted crown of thorns wet with blood was wrapped around her left arm.  She made her way to a small portable refrigerator and grabbed a plastic packet filled with a thick red liquid and lifted it too her mouth as if to drink it.  " Why the hell are you still here."  The john ran his hand through his thinning hair and paused at the door to her motel room.  " You are a cold vicious bitch but the damn hottest whore I ever banged."

" Gee, your such a sweet talker," she paused for a moment…. "GO," she roared as her eyes flashed golden.  The john ran out the door slipping on a puddle outside the door.  The young prostitute let out a cynical laugh and savagely bit into the plastic bag.  The cold liquid ran thickly down her throat.  Draining it in a few moments she tossed it into the trash as she stepped toward the bathroom to take a shower.  She was about to run the water when a voice called out, "you know blood tastes better when it's warm.  Maybe you should heat it up."

The young girl froze at the edge of the bathroom door and without turning around said, "Its wrong for blood to taste good."  She turned, slowly shifted into game face and hissed, " you don't smell human and your too damn quiet for one, so what the hell are you."

            The vision that greeted her was an odd one even for someone who had seen nearly everything in her centuries long existence.  An apparently human male with a narrow face half hidden by hat stood by her open motel room door wearing a puke green shirt and a leather jacket and casually eating a hot dog with relish piled on.  He stepped through her doorway while appreciatively eyeing her nude form.  " Names Whistler.  I'm a balance demon and I work for the powers that be.  I know who you are…. Faith."

" I'm all quivery from the name dropping." Faith said clearly not caring.  " What's the middle managers want with me."

" Look at you," Whistler waved his dog about, " you were the most famous vampire in Europe for two and a half centuries.  Now your what? A prostitute whoring out your body for money.  This is you? You want to be gutter trash…a nobody." Whistler snorted, "Your special, unique in all the world and this how you spend your time."  As he talked, Whistler slowly walked toward Faith staring straight into her yellow demon eyes.

You don't know what I have done, " she whispered, her bravado gone, as the ridges and fangs melt away leaving only haunted black eyes.  " The only thing I ever had worth anything was this body," as she motioned at her nude form.  " I was a whore and a waste as a mortal and worse as a vampire.  It's all I know," she said with a broken voice.

"You could be more, you could matter to people and the world.  Use your power and knowledge for good instead of letting it languish while you open your legs for nameless johns."  Whistler smiled as he polished off his dog.  " I got something to show you right here in La that might inspire you to help the Powers."

For the first time a glimmer of interest and hope shone in Faiths eyes.  " Where we going."

"Hemery High School."

            Whistler and Faith pulled up to Hemery the next day just as the students were leaving school.  The windows on Whistlers car were heavily tinted so Faith could be out and about during the day without risking dusting.  Faith frowned as she saw the throngs of fashionable, tanned teenagers._ What have they had to suffer?  Their mommies and Daddies have given them everything.  They've never had to beg on the steps of a church or let dirty fingers… _Faith was jealous of their innocence and ease of life.

            " Her, she's the one I wanted to show you."  Whistlers pointed out a slender blond cheerleader who was surrounded by a gaggle of admirers.  She looked like the most important decision that she had to make was what kind of hair dye to use.  She smiled at something one of her admirers said and began to laugh until an older man wearing a rumpled suit approached her.  He said something to which she responded by shaking her head angrily.   They went back and forth for several minutes until she got up and walked off.

            " Who's she?" Faith clearly was not impressed by what she saw in the child.  Whistler responded, " her name is Buffy Summers and she's the new slayer."

            Faith watched Buffy for the next several months.  She saw buffy kill her first vampire in a posh graveyard.  She had to admit that Buffy showed real promise as a warrior although that name was not going to strike fear in the heart of a six-inch Gravock demon let alone something truly fierce.  She was strong and imaginative, if overly talkative with her prey.  Not to mention her puns needed a lot of work.

            Faith saw as Buffy shook like a leaf after her first battle.  The way she cried in her watcher's arms.  Something began to germinate in Faith.  The spoiled cheerleader started to grow up.  So did the angst-ridden whore.  The eyes which once lit up only while shopping or gossiping now burned with determination.  Faith was impressed in spite of herself. _Perhaps the cheerleader was made of stronger stuff than I first thought _ She watched as her old friends abandoned the once popular cheerleader because of her new responsibilities.  She saw the marriage of Buffy's parents disintegrate and the toll it took on Buffy and her slaying.  None of that bowed the determined slayer and Faiths respect mounted.

            Nothing impressed Faith more than the final incident she witnessed while shadowing Buffy.  Buffy made the mistake of trying to tell her parents about her new duties.  About the vampires and demons which haunted the night.  Buffy's parents supported Buffy the best way they knew how.  They sent her away to the finest hospital money could buy.  The anti-psychotic medication the doctors put Buffy on took a hash toll on the slayers finely tuned body.  Eventually Buffy wised up and stopped trying to convince everyone that the monsters were real.  The first thing she did the night she got out of the hospital was to go on patrol.

            Faith was humbled.  She asked Whistler, " why'd you show B to me."  She had started             calling Buffy B cause she gave nicknames to everybody.  Side effect using street talk for almost a century.

            " Kid's gonna have a hard time.  She's really going be one to suffer, if she doesn't get help.  In a few months she will be moving to the Hellmouth and her life will become like a roller coaster without the fun."  Whistler paused for a moment.  " The Powers want you to help, to guide her.  This ones special but she ain't gonna make it on her own."

            Faith wanted to say no.  She wanted to forget the brave slayer and find a john and slip into his arms.  She wanted to screw him till she forgot the bodies, the bloody churches.  She needed to humiliate herself some more at the hands of anonymous partners.  It was nothing less than she deserved.  She couldn't help the slayer, guide her.  She couldn't guide herself.  She wanted to say no. _That Slayer's the brave one.  She knows she's going to die and she fights anyway.  Unlike the other slayers who have been sheltered she knows what the world has to offer.  And she knows she can't have it._  _Who am I to let her fight alone?_

            Faith struggled to find the words.  " I want to help her whist but I don't know if I can.  I don't know if I have it in me anymore.  I'm old, used up."  She looked sadly at Whistler.  " Let me think about it.  Right now I may do more harm than good.  I haven't even been in a fight in almost seventy years.  That's the best I give you."

            " You have three days to find your faith."

            Faith had not prayed in a long.  Well over three centuries in fact.  It was high time to break that self-imposed prohibition.  A long time ago Faith had been a devout Catholic.  What little time she spent off the streets in her tiny town she spent inside the local church.  After she was turned the demon had sensed and perverted her profound belief in God.  The demon twisted it into something ugly.  Since she had regained her soul she had not stepped foot inside of a church, though Faith could not say whether it was because she was ashamed by her actions while soulless or she was angry with God for allowing such things to happen to her in the first place.  In either case she had an important decision to make so she was going to do what she used to as a mortal and seek refuge in the solace of the church.

            Faith nervously stood outside of a small church in LA gripping a flyer.  A few months ago a group of church workers had approached her along with other streetwalkers in order to minister to them.  She had turned them down, but something in her led her to keep the flyer and now here she was.  She wore one of her most conservative outfits consisting of slightly less tight leather pants and a two-size too small blood red turtleneck.  Finishing off the ensemble was a hip length black leather coat.  She took a deep steadying breath and walked into the church.

            Upon entering the church she immediately had to fight the urge to vamp out and flee thanks to the huge crucifix that hung over the altar.  It was late at night and the church was totally empty.  Faith sat down in the back of the church and stared at the crucifix not quite knowing how to begin.

            " Let me guess, lapsed Catholic."  Faith quickly glanced up at the approaching figure.  She saw an elderly but still handsome priest sporting a graying goatee and wearing a kindly smile.   Faith smile sadly, " you could say that it's been a while since God and I have been on speaking terms.  To tell you the truth I'm not sure who stopped listening first.  I want to talk to him but I don't know how to anymore."

The priest sat down next to her on the pew.  " My name is Father Julian Michaels, child.  Would you care to tell me about what plagues you or maybe you'd be more comfortable starting with your name."

Faith laughed bitterly, " couldn't you guess father, my name is Faith."  

  Father Michaels smiled at Faiths grim joke but merely responded, " I have always found that talking to someone, perhaps a confession, is the best way to unburden your heart.  Or in your case a soul."  

 Faith glanced sharply at the elderly priest, but seeing his placid expression sighed, " Father I think that what I have done transcends a simple talking to or a confession with a few Holy Mary's for penance.  I don't think God can forgive me for the things that I have done to his people or his church.  Even after I was given a second chance I wasted it.  I buried myself in degradation."  She said all this while avoiding the gaze of the priest.  Now she turned to face him.  " You can't understand, you don't have the blood on your hands that I have."

Ignore her challenge for a moment the priest turned from Faiths gaze and abruptly changed the subject.  " If that's all true, why are you here now.  What's changed to make you rethink your life path?"

Faith smiled genuinely for the first time all night.  " I've met someone, someone who makes me think that I can be better.  She needs my help and I, for the first time in a long time have something I think I could fight for."

It sounds like you have already made your choice Faith.  Why the soul searching?"  The priest looked at Faith like he already knew the answer.

"I'm scared."  Faith looked ashamedly down at her feet.  " I not sure I can help this person.  I've spent so much time running and hiding.  What if I can't do anything else?"

" What if you can?  I can tell you are someone special and God has chosen something great for you.   We all have crosses that we must bear Faith.  You must trust that God will not give you a cross that you could not stand under."  Father Michaels looked at Faith with sympathy and understanding.  

            " My cross burns, father," Faith whispered.  " It burns so much." 

            " So does mine, Faith, so does mine."  Something flashed across the priest's face as he got up from the pew.  It was pain and something else.  Something unfathomable.  Faith realized that perhaps the priest did know something about bloody hands.

            The priest left Faith alone with her thoughts.  She knelt down and composed a simple prayer. _I'm sorry father.  I've been angry and ashamed for so long, I wasn't sure I could face you in your own home.  Suicide is a mortal sin and I've slowly been killing myself for nearly a century.  Not killing my body cause I'm immune to everything that plagues whores, but instead killing something much worse.  My soul.  I've drowned my pain in meaningless sex and purposeless wandering.  I could have done better with the second chance that you gave me in your infinite wisdom.  I have squandered your gift until now and I am sorry.  I will do better, be better than I have been.  I will bear my cross and I will stand under it.   Amen. _

Faith finished her prayer and stood up with renewed purpose.  She got up with a swirl of her long coat and left the church, her stride gained confidence with every step she took.  She had a slayer to help and she needed to get in touch with her inner bitch in order to do it.  

She might be a believer but she wasn't a saint.


End file.
